An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1967-1987

by Boland, Eavan

• ISBN13: 9780393316018
• ISBN10: 0393316017
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-06-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Here, from one of our major poets, is the collected early work that has been long unavailable in this country. Included in this volume is the work from Eavan Boland's five early volumes of poetry: New Territory , The War Horse , In Her Own Image , Night Feed , and The Journey . The poems from Boland's first book, New Territory , show her to be, at twenty-two, a master of formal verse reflecting Irish history and myth. This collection charts the ways in which Boland's work breaks from poetic tradition, honors it, and reinvents it. Poems like "Anorexic," "Mastectomy," and "Witching" have an intensity reminiscent of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. In later poems, her subjects become more personal, sequencing Boland's life as a woman, poet, and mother. Boland writes, "I grew to understand the Irish poetic tradition only when I went into exile with it," becoming, in effect, "a displaced person / in a pastoral chaos." This collection demonstrates how Boland's mature voice developed from the poetics of inner exile into a subtle, flexible idiom uniquely her own.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 13
Athene's Song	p. 17
From the Painting Back from Market by Chardin	p. 18
New Territory	p. 19
After the Irish of Aodghan O'Rathaille	p. 20
The Flight of the Earls	p. 21
A Cynic at Kilmainham Jail	p. 22
Belfast vs. Dublin	p. 23
Yeats in Civil War	p. 24
The Poets	p. 25
Mirages	p. 26
The Pilgrim	p. 27
Migration	p. 28
Three Songs for a Legend: 1. A Lullaby for Lir's Son	p. 29
Three Songs for a Legend: 2. The Malediction	p. 30
Three Songs for a Legend: 3. Elegy for a Youth Changed to a Swan	p. 31
The King and the Troubadour	p. 32
Requiem for a Personal Friend	p. 34
The Winning of Etain	p. 35
Dedication: The Other Woman and the Novelist	p. 47
The War Horse	p. 48
The Famine Road	p. 50
Child of Our Time	p. 52
The Hanging Judge	p. 53
A Soldier's Son	p. 55
The Greek Experience	p. 56
The Laws of Love	p. 58
Sisters	p. 60
O Fons Bandusiae	p. 65
Chorus of the Shadows	p. 66
From the Irish of Pangur Ban	p. 67
The Atlantic Ocean	p. 69
Conversation with an Inspector of Taxes about Poetry	p. 71
Ode to Suburbia	p. 77
Naoise at Four	p. 79
Cyclist with Cut Branches	p. 80
Song	p. 81
The Botanic Gardens	p. 82
Prisoners	p. 83
Ready for Flight	p. 84
Anon	p. 85
Suburban Woman	p. 86
Tirade for the Mimic Muse	p. 91
In Her Own Image	p. 93
In His Own Image	p. 94
Anorexic	p. 96
Mastectomy	p. 98
Solitary	p. 100
Menses	p. 102
Witching	p. 104
Exhibitionist	p. 107
Making Up	p. 110
Degas's Laundresses	p. 115
Woman in Kitchen	p. 117
A Ballad of Beauty and Time	p. 118
It's a Woman's World	p. 121
Daphne with Her Thighs in Bark	p. 123
The New Pastoral	p. 125
The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish	p. 126
The Woman Changes Her Skin	p. 128
Pose	p. 130
Patchwork	p. 131
Lights	p. 133
Domestic Interior: 1. Night Feed	p. 135
Domestic Interior: 2. Monotony	p. 137
Domestic Interior: 3. Hymn	p. 139
Domestic Interior: 4. Partings	p. 140
Domestic Interior: 5. Energies	p. 141
Domestic Interior: 6. The Muse Mother	p. 142
Domestic Interior: 7. Endings	p. 144
Domestic Interior: 8. In the Garden	p. 145
Domestic Interior: 9. After a Childhood Away from Ireland	p. 147
Domestic Interior: 10. Fruit on a Straight-Sided Tray	p. 149
Domestic Interior: 11. Domestic Interior	p. 150
I Remember	p. 155
Mise Eire	p. 156
Self-Portrait on a Summer Evening	p. 158
The Oral Tradition	p. 160
Fever	p. 163
The Unlived Life	p. 165
Lace	p. 167
The Bottle Garden	p. 169
Suburban Woman: A Detail	p. 170
The Briar Rose	p. 172
The Women	p. 173
Nocturne	p. 175
The Fire in Our Neighborhood	p. 176
On Holiday	p. 177
Growing Up	p. 178
There and Back	p. 179
The Wild Spray	p. 180
The Journey	p. 182
Envoi	p. 186
Listen. This Is the Noise of Myth	p. 187
An Irish Childhood in England: 1951	p. 190
Fond Memory	p. 192
Canaletto in the National Gallery of Ireland	p. 193
The Emigrant Irish	p. 194
Tirade for the Lyric Muse	p. 195
The Woman Takes Her Revenge on the Moon	p. 197
The Glass King	p. 199
Index	p. 201
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